More Questions and answers with 3PM, Taiwanese adult webmaster
His site is http://pttpppmmm.blogspot.com/ and there now is some stuff in English, just to entertain LIB readers.
What it is like trying to get porn movies in your country? How much do they cost? Are they illegal copies?
Since porn (any kind of penetration, and ever just showing human genitals could consider as pornographic) is illegal in Taiwan (even the censored Japanese porn), the government would consider porn as "no copyright". No one should sell it, buy it, or own it, because porn supposes to be "non-existence".
There are underground markets selling bootleg porn DVDs, mostly Japanese porn, and some western porn DVDs. A lot of bootleg copies are actually made in China (it may be a bit political, though China (communist government) claims that Taiwan (democratic government) is part of China, but Taiwan has its own president, government and military force, and in no way (as of today) is the same country as China. In fact, most Taiwanese would consider China as a totally different country.
The price of bootleg DVD is dirt cheap compares to US. In Taiwan, people can get bootleg DVDs for as low as 2-3 US dollars a piece. But then again, porn is illegal materials and there is no normal/legal way to get porn in Taiwan. The only legal way to pay for porn, I guess would be VOD service thorough oversea websites, but compare to dirt cheap DVDs, most people would get the bootleg copies anyway. Of course another ways to get porn is on all those "free" porn sites, such as youporn and redtube, which is a global problem for this industry and not just happening in Taiwan/Asia.
Are there adult stores that sell movies and toys in Taiwan?
There are adult stores in Taiwan, of course, most of them would sell porn movies and adult toys. It is funny that they can sell and even display adult toys such as dildos and vibrators legally, selling porn is not. I suppose they need to pay the police just to sell porn, yet whenever there is enough people/parents/religious groups/media/senator (most of the times are female)/whoever complain hard about it, the police would try to make some arrests (for show and the mass media) just so the government/mayor/politician(s) does not lose "face", and after a while, those stores will open and do business as usual.
Do you have strip clubs, with naked dancers in Taiwan?
Gentlemen clubs are also another grey area. People do go to these clubs, and a lot of times, police and politicians do visit these places quite often. These clubs are almost always linked to prostitution though, as least under the table. As for strip club, any kind of exposure of nipples and genitals would consider illegal even in a club (if they get caught), yet people are still doing it, as far as police let them open for business ("don’t ask don’t tell" in a way). In the old days, people would call this kind of nudity show theater (singing and dancing in nude) as "beef market". Again, whenever there is a big complain, the police will try to do something and after a short while, things just back to "normal".
Do you have porn stars visit?
One of the ridiculous example that I can tell you is that, in Taiwan they actually invited Japanese porn stars to Taiwan and help promote products and even holding shows (no nudity, bikinis okay) in conventions (such as comi-con) or night clubs, news programs even treat them like a rock star or something, yet talking about porn star is still consider kind of a taboo in certain way. I guess the dilemma is that young people consider porn as a common and normal thing, yet the government and older folks (a lot of them are hypocrites anyway) do not and always blaming porn as "contaminating" the society and "initiated rapists’ desire to action" among other unreasonable claims.
How do you get your information to write stories about the porn industry?
As porn is illegal in Taiwan, internet is the best way to get information of this industry. The good thing about Taiwan is that they do not block any porn websites basically. In Mainland China, they do (though computer savvy persons can get around those Chinese censor thing pretty easily), and I believe that my blog is actually blocked in China, but I still get a lot of traffic from there. I can read as many porn related websites as I like. I use iafd.com and freeones.com among other websites a lot to check for basic information.